Abstract

Climate change, air pollution and especially short-rotation forestry are the main causes for increasing detrimental effects on forests. Therefore, it is urgently necessary to find effective counteractions to this damage so that forests will become resistant, grow sustainably and are more economically effective and thus contribute optimally to the common welfare for all citizens. ‘Continuous mixed forestry’, in contrast to the normally used short-rotation or age-classed-forestry, is one suitable model to counteract climate change and air pollution in this way on both the local and national level. It is forestry without clear-cuts, biocides and with soft logging by continuous thinning and natural regeneration.The necessary change to this sustainable cultivation model is generally possible and necessary all over Europe and in other areas of the world. A very good chance for this type of forestry is available now within the framework of selling state-owned forests to private investors. This selling is planned by governments in some countries like the Great Britain¹xThe Guardian, 22 December 2010, For sale: all of our forests. Not some of them, nor most of them – the whole lot, 11:55 GMT; Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (2011), In love of the forest (Aus Liebe zum Forst), 4 February, No. 29, p. 5. But the British Government has apparently changed its view, see: The Guardian, 17 February 2011, Timber! Cameron in U-turn over forests sell-off, p. 1. and has been partly realised on a large scale in Germany.²xE.g. Lower House of the German Parliament (2009), answer of the Federal Government to the small question … Privatisation of forests by the Federal Institute of Real Estate Tasks, 16. Election period, Drucks. 16/14115, 30 September 2009. This article proposes selling the state-owned forests to a central, private national heritage foundation as a first step instead of transferring them with their traditional, mismanaged short rotation or age-classed forestry to private investors who would continue the state mismanagement. The task of the foundation would be to organize the ‘citizen forest society’ as a social-ethics–based society that is privately owned by citizens and the foundation. This would generate ecological advantages for the forest and moreover long-lasting profits for citizens, because the foundation would establish other organizations where the citizens become responsible owners of ‘their’ forest without any governmental or third-party influence.This proposal describes a solution to the demands of social-oriented ethics, which are primarily focused on the cooperation of responsible persons, represented by the private ownership of the forests, and directed by a responsible foundation.

Noten

• 1 The Guardian, 22 December 2010, For sale: all of our forests. Not some of them, nor most of them – the whole lot, 11:55 GMT; Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (2011), In love of the forest (Aus Liebe zum Forst), 4 February, No. 29, p. 5. But the British Government has apparently changed its view, see: The Guardian, 17 February 2011, Timber! Cameron in U-turn over forests sell-off, p. 1.

• 2 E.g. Lower House of the German Parliament (2009), answer of the Federal Government to the small question … Privatisation of forests by the Federal Institute of Real Estate Tasks, 16. Election period, Drucks. 16/14115, 30 September 2009.